A digital tool to design structurally feasible semi-circular masonry arches composed of interlocking blocks

This work deals with a digital tool to design stable semi-circular masonry arches composed of interlocking blocks which are kept together by interlocking connectors on their faces. These blocks, comparing to conventional blocks, increase the sliding resistance and reduce the workmanship. However, the current digital tools were developed mostly to design arches with conventional blocks. The proposed tool tries to fill this gap by addressing the work in three stages. First, a heuristic method is developed to define the relationships between the geometry of an interlocking face and the sliding resistance. Then, a structural analysis procedure is developed based on limit analysis and a heuristic method to define the stability condition of the arch. Finally, optimization algorithms are developed to find the thinnest arch by means of two minimization strategies dealing with the relationship between the sliding resistance of the blocks and the geometry of the interlocking faces, differently. The algorithms consider some control points on a given thrust line and automatically adjust them to minimize the thickness, while the stability condition checks the structural feasibility during the geometry adjustment. To evaluate the accuracy of the proposed heuristic method, the results obtained with FE analysis are used for comparison

Relationship between the usage count and the number of citations in the journals of Library and Information Sciences: The case of access type

Nowadays, the open access movement has become one of the most effective to make upto- date information accessible to users. This study aimed at examining the relationship between the usage count and the number of citations of library and information sciences articles emphasizing on access type and the study used document analysis and scientometrics based on journals in the Web of Science. Openaccess journals (six journals with 60 articles) and non-open access journals (ten journals with 100 articles) were selected. The www.simagojr.com site was checked to get ensured about the field of journals. The findings indicated among openaccess journals, "Information Research-An International Electronic Journal"and "Information Technology and Libraries" were the oldest and had the highest number of articles. The average number of citations was related to Transinformacao (3.3) and Journal of the Medical Library Association (112.4). The use of open access journals varied between 10.1 (Information Research) and 17.9 (Revista Espanola de Documentacion Cientifica) since 2013. Accordingly, there was no significant relationship between the usage countof the articles in open access journals and the number of citations. Among the non-open access journals, the"International Journal of Information Management" was the oldest. The average number of citations was between 120.1 for the "International Journal of Information Management" and 709.4 for"Information System Research". The extent of using non-open access journals varied between 26.1 for "Journalofthe American Medical Informatics Association" and 181 for the "Journal of Computer -Mediated Communication".There was significant relationship between using the articles in non-open access journals and the number of citations. The total correlation for open-access journals and non-open access journals were 0.23 and 0.40, respectively. The correlation for each journal of any access type was weak to strong. © 2019 Library Philosophy and Practice

A Study of Muslim Philosophers’ Views about Rhythm and Rhyme (with emphasis on the works of Aristotle, al-Farabi, Averroes, Ibn Sina, Baghdadi, Khajeh Nasir and Ghartajeni)

A part of Muslim philosophers’ studies is allocated to music. They categorize music as a sub-branch of mathematical sciences and investigate it scientifically, not artistically. Al-Musighi al-Kabir by al-Farabi and Javame’ Elm al-Musighi by Ibn Sina are among the most important works in this regard. Under the general category of music, they also allocate a section to the music of poem and investigate it scientifically. Their ideas about the music of poem are similar to as well as different from the ideas of prosodists. This article aims to study their ideas about the music of poem briefly. The first section is allocated to the issue of rhythm in verbal arts and it is shown that our philosophers consider two kinds of rhythm: quantifiable and not quantifiable. The first one exists in poem and the second one is in non-poetic language. Also they define certain characteristics for each of these rhythms. Quantity, the equality of cadences, provoking admiration and having distant returns are the features of poetic rhythm, whereas regular join and separation, similar endings, symmetry of sentences with regard to length, agreement and similarity of symmetrical words regarding movements, pauses and numbers of such words, appropriate usage of music-creating devices such as puns, alliterations and parallelisms are among the features of non-poetic rhythms. The significance of rhythm in poem and its status is another issue investigated in this article and it is shown that music and mimesis are two necessary elements that poem is made simply by the presence of them and the fundamental matter in the music of poem is “proportion”. Also it is shown that such matter is the basis of meters and prosodies. Our investigation shows that musical sounds and poetic meters are following the same system. Under other issues such as “Tanghim” it is shown that, by creating such terms, philosophers try to show that the factor of sound is important in the formation of rhythm and the proposition of issues such as the relationship between rhythm and emotional-semantic backgrounds of poem makes it clear if in their views there is a meaningful relationship between these two factors or not?Rhyme is the second music-creating element in the poem. Philosophers have investigated this element less than rhythm. For example, Ibn Sina and al-Farabi explain the relation between rhyme and Arabic as well as other poems. The disagreements between philosophers and prosodists with regard to this element are also studied in this article

The 100 most-cited articles on malaria: a bibliometric analysis

Purpose: The use of citation analysis to identify the first 100 articles on malaria offers unique insights into understanding the disease and subsequent follow-up treatment innovations over time. In this study, the 100 most-cited articles on malaria were analyzed, and key studies were highlighted. Design/methodology/approach: The data of the most-cited articles for the period of four decades were extracted from the Web of Science database. The search terms malaria, plasmodium infection and remittent fever were used to identify the related articles for the study. Findings: The preliminary data of the 100 most-cited articles were recorded and analyzed. The total number of retrieved articles was 55,517. Dondrop and colleagues wrote the most-cited articles focusing on a new treatment for falciparum malaria resistant to existing medications. The author, with the most publications, was N. J. White. The most-cited articles on malaria were published in 35 journals. The USA had published most of the influential articles, while the Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit was the leading institute active in malaria research. The experimental method was the most frequent method used by the most-cited articles. There was a significant relationship between the number of authors, the presence of the corresponding author on Research Gate, the availability of the full text of the article on Research Gate, the impact factor of the journal in which the article was published and the international collaboration of authors and the number of citations on malaria. The most influential authors, countries, institutes, journals and articles were specified. Most of the notable articles on malaria were published in journals with high impact factors. A group of journals was introduced as the core journals. Originality/value: It was found that having co-authors, the presence of the corresponding author on Research Gate, the availability of the full text of the article on Research Gate, the impact factor of the journal in which the article was published and international collaboration contributed to the publication of high-quality scientific products. Updated information on malaria is needed to present and expand the screening strategies to improve health and reduce burden of malaria. © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited